The stages of grief
by Araceli Maura
Summary: Spike and Faye are left alone on the Bebop to contimplate the meaning of life..well, in their own way. Lots of angst and general frusteration. Faye's POV
1. Resist

The Stages of Grief  
  
An attempt at a song-fic for Cowboy Bebop. Put to the lyrics of Hoobastanks "Running away." Um yeah so everything in (~) is the song. ^_^ That's probably really obvious but I figured I'd state it anyway. *Clears throat* Once again, I do not do not own Cowboy Bebop or any of its characters nor do I own Hoobastank or their lovely little song that I chose to write this to. So, with that aside...  
  
* * *   
  
Chapter 1: Resist  
  
~I don't want you to give it all up  
~And leave your own life collecting dust  
  
  
I had never understood him, nor had I ever feigned that I had. He was my enigma, my mystery. That certain thing in your life that you know you will never understand or comprehend but always wish that you could. In a way you could say I was addicted to him. His very presence, his very essence was enough to charge my entire being, awakening something lost and forgotten in me.  
  
I watched him as he sat sprawled out on the couch, his long legs taking up the entire area, arms wrapped around his head to block out the light as he slept. Bits of black hair stuck out between his limbs and I suppressed a smile as I sat down across from him.   
  
I never expected him to return those emotions, to watch me the way I watched him. I knew it was a hopeless ideal, a vision that would never leave the enclosure of my mind's eye. But I liked to watch him anyway. He was like a lazy cat that you were torn between the urge of yelling at it to get it off its butt or curling up next to it and petting it. I suppressed another grin at the thought of petting him.  
  
"Something you want Faye?" He asked, his voice half muffled by the arm that lay across it.   
  
I jumped, slightly startled that he had been awake the whole time and felt my face begin to turn red.   
  
"No. I just wanted to see how long it would take you to realize I was here." Weak excuse.  
  
He removed his arm but kept his eyes shut. "Right. And you thought staring at me would wake me up faster?"   
  
I snorted derisively. "Please, don't flatter yourself Spike. I just didn't have anywhere else to go."   
  
  
~And I don't want you to feel sorry for me  
~You never gave us a chance to be  
  
  
And silence ensued. I looked away toward the door; half wishing that Jet would walk through and interrupt the awkward silence that Spike seemed to enjoy so much.   
  
"Well then, if you don't want anything why don't you just go to your room?" He asked, half-annoyed.   
  
I felt my tempter flare as my hands balled into fists. Ugh this man could be so annoying! Sometimes I wondered why I even put up with him!   
  
"Well excuse me for not wanting to be in an enclosed space for the 10 hour trip to Venus! I do enjoy getting air every now and then you know! Besides, you're not the only one who lives here you know Spike!"  
  
I saw his lips curl into a smile but his eyes remained closed. Without waiting for him to answer, I got up and strode from the room, angry that I had even attempted to have a discussion with him. Then again, I had just intended to watch him as he slept, not talk with him. I blushed at the thought of him knowing I only wanted to look at him and pushed him from my mind. I wasn't going to waste time on him; he only served to annoy the hell of me.   
  
I entered my room and slammed the door behind me, crossing my arms across my chest and walking over to the small window to the right of my bed. Where did he get off acting like such a jerk anyway? What if I had just wanted to have a discussion with him? Jeez.   
  
  
~And I don't need you to be by my side  
~to tell me that everything's all right  
  
  
I've known for a long time that my emotions were conflicting. One moment I felt like slapping him, the next I felt like kissing him. One moment I was frustrated and annoyed, the next I was laughing and content. There was a part of me that was drawn to him, a part of me that stuck it out no matter how bad the situation got. I had stayed with him when he left to fight Vicious and I stayed with him when he suffered through the loss of Julia. And I stayed with him now. I didn't understand myself. I knew that he had never felt the same way about me, and that holding a flame for him was entirely pointless. He would just blow it out anyway. That's just how Spike was.   
  
So I tried to convince myself that I didn't need him, that I had never needed him. And it had worked, for a brief while. But that day he left I realized that my feelings for him were something I couldn't get rid of. It wasn't just something I could just shake off, like a bad head cold. He was like a disease I had inherited and could never be rid of, something that would haunt me for the remainder of my pitiful existence.  
  
I looked out the window at the stars as they passed us by. It was really very beautiful out here. I never really took the time to appreciate what space looked like from my window.   
  
There was a noise behind me, a soft clicking noise that sounded distinctly like my door opening and then closing. I half turned to see Spike standing in my doorway looking out the same window that I was standing before. He had his hands in his pockets and a slight grin on his face as he approached me.   
  
"What is it Spike?" I asked, my curiosity out-weighing my general annoyance. He didn't say anything until he stood directly beside me, his eyes still on the stars as they moved quickly past us.   
  
"I'm sorry." He said, his voice low.   
  
I was so surprised I almost jumped back away from him. "You-your sorry?" I stammered, blinking up at him. He had never once apologized to me for anything, especially nothing as trivial and meaningless such as insulting me.   
  
There was a look in his eyes that made me stop and refrain from making a sarcastic comment.   
  
"Yeah. I'm sorry, that I told you to go away like that." He gave me a sidelong glance as he spoke.   
  
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know whether to press him further to see if he was teasing me and risk angering him if he wished to confide in me.   
  
  
~I just wanted you to tell me the truth  
~You know I'd do that for you  
~Why are you running away?  
~Why are you running away?  
  
  
There was another long silence in which I sat too stunned to say anything and he simply watched as we moved closer to our destination.   
  
"Do you ever, feel like it's all worth nothing? That everything you've done up until this point is meaningless?" He spoke so quietly I almost had to lean closer to hear him. "That one thing that keeps you going, that ties you to this world suddenly goes away and you no longer feel like existing without it."   
  
I simply sat there, stunned as he confided in me. For the first time in the long time I'd known him he was telling me something that was going on inside him. He was finally showing me just what went on in that messed up head of his. A part of me wanted to understand him further and wanted him to tell me his thoughts and emotions, his dreams and fears. The other half, however, was not so willing. That part was the cautious part, the part of me that screamed "watch what you're doing!" It was the part that wanted to be sarcastic and cynical and retaliate with biting marks.   
  
Guess what part won out?  
  
"It's hard to exist without a purpose." Why do I always stick my nose in where it doesn't belong? I amaze myself sometimes. "But then, not knowing that purpose is part of living." Wow I was on a roll. Where was I pulling this crap from anyway?  
  
I felt him respond rather than actually see his reaction. There was a shift in his presence where I felt whatever guard he had held up against me broke down, a bit wearily. "I just don't understand. What do you do once you've found that purpose and then lose it? Was that...it? What happens next?" He sighed heavily. "Once you lose that purpose, it's hard to continue. You either want to die, or just walk away. To pretend it never happened and leave it all behind."   
  
I shook my head. This was by far the strangest event that had ever occurred between Spike and I. He was actually coming to me for advice. And the even stranger aspect was that I was giving it to him. It was sick in a way that I actually believed what I was saying. I had never been the one to take advice, let alone churn it out like a fortune cookie. And yet, here I was. Standing next to Spike Spiegel, the self-resurrected bounty hunter. The man who had more lives than freaking Felix the cat. And I was giving the advice. For the first time I felt important.   
  
  
~Cause I did enough to show you that I  
~Was willing to give and sacrifice  
~And I was the one who was lifting you up  
~When you thought your life had had enough  
  
  
They say there are stages of grief. That every person goes through them in order to cope with a loss or unexpected turn of events. I suppose this is what you would call stage one: Denial and Isolation.   
  
"I suppose life comes next. You let what's done and gone go, and you move on. Life isn't just a direct purpose, it's a whole bunch of them." I looked at him briefly to see how he was taking this. As usual, his face showed no emotion except for a slight twitch that had developed in his right eye. "Your life doesn't have to end just because a part of it was taken away." Damn I needed a cigarette.   
  
I had always thought that I was the head-case. That everyone else on this damn ship had it significantly more together than I did. Out of all of us, I thought I'd be the one needing the advice. The thought was actually amusing, in a coincidental sense.  
  
Another one of those stupid silences ensued. I always hated those awkward silences that seemed to lull a once interesting conversation into a still and uneventful course of events. So why did it seem to always happen around Spike and I?   
  
To be continued... 


	2. Divulgence

Chapter 2: Divulgence  
  
  
He didn't move or speak or show any sign of general reaction for a good 10 minutes.   
  
I don't consider patience to be a virtue. Actually since I had lost any traces of virtue I may have once had, patience was something I wasn't entirely concerned about. Biting my tongue from making a remark, I turned away and sat down on my bed, my eyes now on the floor instead of the dizzying path of stars that raced by us. I don't know why I had thought them to be beautiful. They're just a bunch of balls of gas that eventually flicker and die out, leaving nothing but a big hole where they used to be. No, stars weren't so great, when you looked at the grand scheme of them.   
  
Most of the time, after confiding in someone, you feel bare, exposed; like something you didn't want to reveal was abruptly brought out in the open and you're left there feeling shocked and alone. And most of the time, after such an event, anger shows itself. Sometimes resentment, or even blatant distaste or distrust.   
  
Spike's entire body tensed as I sat there, watching him, his back turned to me. I could see his reflection in the window of my room and I watched as his eyes narrowed themselves and then closed momentarily. Stage two: Anger.  
  
"It's all futile really. To live day in and day out without having a purpose or a direction." His jaw clenched. "If this is all there is to life, I don't care to deal with it."  
  
He turned then, toward the door, walking with a resolve I didn't think he had yet regained back.   
  
Before he could reach the door I stopped him, my voice low yet still commanding.   
  
"Is that all you came in here for? To tell me that life's pointless, that once you lose a direction you should just throw the rest of it all away?" I was testing him, pushing him to a point that I wasn't sure he was ready to come to. If there was a fine line between criticism and guidance I was certainly walking it.   
  
  
~And when I get close, you turn away  
~There's nothing that I can do or say  
~So now I need you to tell me the truth  
~You know I'd do that for you  
  
  
He turned on me then, his eyes flashing as he approached the bed I sat on. "Do you have any idea what it's like to have finally found exactly what it is you've always looked for and then have it ripped away from you?" I was suddenly aware of just how dry and course my bed sheets actually were as I gripped them in my hands, twisting them until my knuckles turned an off color white. He was hovering over me now; his legs bumping into my knees and the edges of my bed as I attempted to stand my ground.   
  
If there was one thing I hated it was a woman who couldn't stand her ground. Women who shied away from conflict both angered and annoyed me. To me, the whole point of an argument was the satisfaction of winning. Of course, I had never liked to lose.   
  
"Of course you don't know what I mean." He said, his voice full of an anger I couldn't quite place. "You've never known what I have. You've never experienced my pain." His mouth opened and his lips worked as if he were going to speak something to me, something infinitely more harsh than the words before it. I pondered briefly if I could handle whatever came from his mouth next. Those words that left his lips stung and yet infuriated me at the same time. But the words I attempted to speak, the phrases and harsh comments that yearned to leave the safety of my tongue never came and I just stared up at him as his jaw clamped shut and he turned on his heel and stocked out of my room.   
  
  
~So why are you running away?  
~Why are you running away?  
~Is it me, is it you  
~Nothing that I can do  
~To make you change your mind  
  
  
I wondered if it was possible to have this much of a delayed reaction after a fight. To sit as still as I did, not moving, not blinking, just sitting. My hands still clutched uselessly at the white sheets and I became dimly aware of the fact that I had ripped a hole clear through a piece of it. Everything he had said to me still seemed to echo through the room, creating a hallowed effect that bounced the words back into my mind, stinging like a fresh slap across my face.   
  
Only a few moments must have passed before I forced myself into a standing position and chased after him out the door, finding him picking something up off the couch in the lounge area. If anger had never again to register in my mind, I wouldn't have cared. All I wanted was to attack him, to lash out at him as unfairly as he had lashed at me. To show him the same kind of pain I was now experiencing. And I wanted to do it with as much physical contact as possible.   
  
Coming from behind him, I refrained momentarily from simply jumping on his back and knocking him to the ground. As angry as I was, I wanted my words to cut deep before my hands did.   
  
"You think you know so much, don't you?" He turned, a look of surprise crossing his features quickly as he saw me standing behind him, my fists clenched, eyes blazing with a fire I thought I had lost long ago.   
"Do you think you're the only one that has lost something here Spike? Do you really have the audacity to believe that you're the only one who suffers, that you're the only one who has experienced pain?" The words were coming much more quickly now, and my vision blurred and turned red in my anger. I had never, ever experienced anger as I was feeling it now.   
  
"You walk around like a broken doll and expect us all to just sit back and pity you. Well I won't do it anymore. I've lost just as much as you have, Spike. If not more." Why is it that anger is almost always followed by sadness? I felt my anger begin to evaporate as quickly as it had come as the tears welled in my eyes and slid down my cheeks. I did nothing to stop them. I was beyond caring.   
  
"Try not having a past. Try never knowing if you had a family that loved you or if you had a place to call home. At least you have memories to return to; old jokes to remember, friends laughter, a parents voice." The tears were spilling from my eyes now, running down the length of my face and dropping to the floor at my feet. I imagined them to be bits of glass that shattered as they hit the ground, taking with them all of my pain. "I've never had that. I've never felt like I belonged. The vague memories I have don't mean anything. They're like bits of a record that keep playing over and over in my mind but never allowing me to hear the whole song. I can't move on, and I can't run from them like you can because I don't have them. So you see Spike, you have a choice to forget your past and start a new future. I don't have either."   
  
Never once had I actually let those words leave the constraints of my mind. I had always known that I felt pain and that I was suffering but I had never told anyone just how much. My entire body shook as I stood before him, not knowing what to say next and not caring. I felt broken, alone and used.   
  
  
~Is it me, is it you  
~Nothing that I can do  
~Is it a waste of time?  
~Is it me, is it you  
~Nothing that I can do  
~To make you change your mind  
  
  
Why we never got along always alluded me. Maybe it was that we were one and the same. Emotions were always conflicting, headstrong and independent. We always seemed to end up in an argument, whether it was over something trivial or semi-important. And yet both of us had never once spoken the words that we flung at each other now. Phrases that stung and would leave marks forever, even after forgiveness had been established and a new state of balance had been erected. Stage three: Depression.  
  
I had never wanted to have the ground suddenly open up and swallow me as much as I did then. I would have given anything to be able to escape him and that strange look that had now entered his eyes. Ripping myself away from whatever kept me grounded before him, I turned to leave. Anywhere would have been better than waiting for the next words that would come out of his mouth. I didn't think my heart could handle them.   
  
His arm caught mine as I turned and he pulled to keep me where I was. Anger and sadness molded into one and I struggled to free myself from his grasp as sobs racked my body. "Let me go Spike! Just let me go damn you!" My other arm came up to swing at him but he caught it before it was even close to his face, bringing it back down roughly to my sides and clamping his hands on my wrists.   
  
Pain, hate, anger, suffering, sadness, aching, loss. Words and emotions that meant nothing threatened to escape me as I fought his grasp, wanting desperately to evade his touch. "Please, please..." The resolve to fight him left me and I felt my legs begin to buckle as he forced me to my knees. "Please... please let me go."   
  
I didn't know if he even understood what I was saying between my gasps and sobs. My entire body was shaking as he gripped my arms and knelt before me watching the built up pain flow out of me like an exhaled breath.   
  
  
~So why are you running away?  
~Why are you running away?  
~...What is it I've got to say...  
  
  
"Faye." His voice was barely above a whisper but enough to calm my sobs and force me to look at him. "Faye, I'm-" I shook my head as he made to apologize, already knowing by simply looking in his eyes. I had never been one for apologizes. A word could never undo what had already been done, take away the pain that had already been caused.   
  
So we sat there, his callused hands gripping my arms, his fingers digging into my pale flesh. Neither of us spoke until the tears stopped coming and I could breathe without feeling as if my heart were going to explode. The whole time he never let me go, and he never stopped looking at me. I saw pain in his eyes, a pain that matched my own and I knew without having to ask that he regretted the words he had spoken to me.   
  
"Faye, I-"   
  
"It's okay." I finished, feeling the tear stains on my face finally begin to dry.   
"No, it isn't. I didn't mean that. I was just-"   
"Angry." I nodded. He wasn't that hard to figure out after all.   
"And hurt. I needed to let it out and-" He sighed. "That wasn't the best way to do it."   
  
I smiled slightly, sniffling and lowering my eyes. Having people watch me cry was something I wasn't used to. Opening up to people was also something I wasn't used to, and I had done both in a matter of minutes. I really was beginning to scare myself.   
  
The silence that followed was a different kind from the ones previously experienced. This silence felt needed and expected. It was like the calm after a storm that brought everything back into perspective. So we simply looked at each other without speaking, knowing that we both weren't ready for the impact those words could make on the situation.   
  
I opened my mouth to speak at the same time he did and I clamped mine shut quickly, waiting for his voice to finally penetrate the silence that surrounded us. "I-"   
  
"I managed to snag us some actual fish this time. Not that cheap stuff that-" Jet's voice rang through the quite room like a gunshot and we both turned to look at him as he came through the small entry way.   
  
Befuddlement was the only word that came to mind.   
His face seemed to be a mixture of confusion and shock, with a little bit of anger and amusement mixed in. An interesting expression really.   
  
It was then that I realized how strange we must have looked together. Both of us kneeling on the floor, Spike's arms still clutching mine intently, both our eyes locked together, tear stains evident on my face. I stood quickly and backed away from Spike, wiping my face with the back of my hand and turning toward the kitchen as my face turned a bright shade of red.   
  
I heard Jet's voice behind me as I turned the water on and brought it to my face, cooling the warmth that had invaded it. "What was that all about?"   
  
I dried my face with a towel and entered the room, forcing my face into its usual nonchalant and indifferent expression. "So is the fish actually good this time Jet, or are we going to be throwing up for a week after eating it again?" I threw the towel at Spike who caught it easily and smiled at me over Jet's shoulder. I was actually proud to hear strength return to my voice and not shake the words as I spoke.   
  
"Well maybe if you hadn't stuffed your face with so much of it last time you might have actually had time to digest it." Spike retorted an all out grin breaking across his face. I laughed and shook my head as Jet entered the kitchen, Spike following closely behind. Before he reached the door, he turned back and smiled at me, the first genuine smile he had given to me since I had known him.   
  
Yeah, things were finally going back to normal.  
  
  
~...To make you admit you're afraid...  
~Why are you running away?  
  
  
  
  
And that flaming piece of crap is finally out of the way! *heavy sigh* Well at least I got it off my chest. I hope it's not bad to the point of vomiting, but oh well. Yeah the ending was kind of rushed because I was just getting annoyed by the end of it and just wanted it to end. But, well, there it is. And I know that there are other stages of grief but I really didn't feel like weaving them in there. I think it would have seemed really forced. So, I hope it provided a couple minutes of amusement. Thanks! 


End file.
